Category Archives: City Center

Just when you thought they have buily the BIGGEST AND BEST, someone comes along with a bigger idea! The glittering 67-acre CityCenter development ushers in something new to Sin City. An elite cluster of first-class accommodations, including the much talked about ARIA Resort Hotel and Casino . Plus Vdara Hotel and Spa, Mandarin Oriental, Veer Towers residences and Crystals shopping complex.

Raising the bar in Las Vegas luxury. Aria has just over 4,000 rooms! With an average 520 square feet with custom furnishings, unparalleled amenities and their exclusive one-touch in-room integrated technology that allow you to easily customize room features based on your personal preferences. The most technologically advanced rooms in all of Las Vegas!

Rooms recognize guests’ first time in the room and “greet” them as they enter; light fills the room, curtains part to show the view, TV turns on to display list of automated controls for guests to personalize

Guests can wake up gradually through controlled temperature, lighting, curtain opening and preferred music

Preferences remembered every time guest is in-room

Wireless Internet connectivity will be up to eight times faster (128 kilobytes) than the average U.S. guestroom today.

To top it all off the property is LEED gold certified by the US Green Building Council.
The biggest hotel in the world to recieve this award.

When MGM Mirage and Infinity World Development (a subsidiary of a Dubai-based investment company) broke ground in 2006, some folks thought they were crazy. $8 billion to transform 67 acres between the Monte Carlo and Bellagio resorts, into a vision of Vegas’s future. It’s almost a seperate little city within Sin City – a quartet of glistening high-rise hotels and a residential pair of golden-on-gold glass towers that tilt like Pisa’s iconic monument.

No crazy themes here, just sleek aesthetic clean lines and luxury.
Luxury is the key word. The world class Mandadin Oriental with their award-winning luxury hotels and resorts throughout the world presents a non-gaming hotel and private residences in Las Vegas.

Vdara is an all suite hotel and spa in a non-gaming, non-smoking building. Access and Escape is their slogan. Close enough to all the action and excitement when you want it – then able to escape from it and enjoy a tranquil sanctuary.

VEER Towers are a pair of tilting/leaning gold residential towers. 670 residences and the best of stylish big city living!
And then CRYSTALS , an astonishing collection of world-famous who-who’s elite retailers like Tom Ford, Roberto Cavalli, Louis Vuitton and Tiffany, paired with one-of-kind galleries from artists such as Dale Chihuly and signature restaurants from Wolfgang Puck and celebrity restaurateur Eva Longoria Parker. This magnificent place welcomes guests on a journey through couture, cuisine and entertainment as they enjoy the interactive atmosphere set within an abstract 21st century park.

What could possibly be next for Las Vegas???Sheldon Adelson is said to be looking at moving the Sands Expo Center elsewhere to make room for 7,000 more rooms, visionary Steve Wynn wants another 5,000 in place of his golf course allegedly, and Station Casinos wants 10,000 more rooms just west of the Strip in its $10+ BILLION Viva project . The project is on hold due to economy but still very much on the minds of Frank and Lorenzo Fertitta from Station Casinos. Viva would like to BE BIGGER than CityCentre on 110-acres. The first phase alone is three casinos and three hotels and 5,200 rooms!

Yes, that’s the famous headline from this June 1955 Life Magazine issue. Those words have been spoken again over the last year in Las Vegas.

Every now and again, if you’re around Vegas long enough, you hear about that infamous issue of Life Magazine with a Moulin Rouge showgirl on its cover. The issue is, to many, the “Dewey Defeats Truman” moment for Vegas journalism for the question its headline asked:

“Las Vegas—Is Boom Overextended?”

It’s a punchline to many on the Strip. Sheldon Adelson himself referenced it in an interview in advance of the Palazzo grand opening. The implication was that almost since the dawn of the destination, naysayers have wondered whether the city could continue to sustain its own urge to constantly grow.

In 2005, some builders started getting more cautious. Not Steve Wynn – he started the latest and largest building-boom Vegas has ever seen. More than 80 high-rise, condo, hotel, mixed-use and other major projects in the Las Vegas area are in various stages of planning, development and construction.

True, in 2009, most came to a stand-still. And some have lost their funding. On the city’s world-famous Strip, two huge building sites are eerily quiet. Fontainebleau , a half-finished $3.9bn casino with 3,800 rooms, which intended to offer perks such as an Apple iMac computer in every room, went bust, but is rumoured to be have been purchased and posied to begin construction again.

Echelon , a $4.8bn resort bankrolled by Boyd Gaming, ceased construction in 2008 and I am told, will probably be torn down now, but I could not confirm that. If it was to be built, it would consist of a Shangri-La Hotel, a Delano Hotel, a Mondrian Hotel, and the Echelon Tower.

But I think the worst is over. Ask any taxi driver or hotel staff and they will tell you, the people are coming back more and more.

The Las Vegas Strip is bloated with new projects , boasting the latest in new urban architecture, design and technology. LEED certified “Green” buildings are making an entrance and many world-famous architects (starchitects) are stepping up to the plate.

But HOW MANY ROOMS can one city fill???

Sheldon Adelson is said to be looking at moving the Sands Expo Center elsewhere to make room for 7,000 more rooms, Wynn wants another 5,000 in place of his golf course allegedly, Station Casinos wanted 10,000 more just west of the Strip in its $10 BILLION Viva project (pictured – the project is on hold, but has not been scrapped) and someone—maybe the Plaza folks, maybe not—is going to do something big on the former Frontier property. Who knows. There is always a lot of talk. And right now, everyone is in a holding pattern, but still very postive about the future of Las Vegas and its continued growth.

Which brings us back to where Las Vegas was in 1955 when that seemingly foolish headline and article were written.

How big is TOO BIG?

Who knows.
I personally think, many eyes are watching CityCenter .
Bursting skywards in the middle of America’s gambling capital, seven glittering towers sparkle. The lavish $11bn CityCenter complex has a casino, four hotels, luxury apartments, a fire station and even an on-site power station. 7,000 rooms and apartments. But its timing couldn’t have been worse. Opening their doors in tough economic times.

A joint venture between the casino operator MGM Mirage and Dubai World , the vast CityCenter development in Las Vegas is the biggest privately funded construction project in the US. It is billed as “a city within a city” and sits between the Bellagio’s dancing fountains and the faux Manhattan skyline of New York New York.

Brian McGill, a gaming analyst at stockbroker Janney Montgomery Scott, says “As many as 15,000 new rooms have opened and/or will shortly open on the Las Vegas strip, requiring an extra $3.2bn of annual tourist spending to make any money. There’s too much supply, particularly at the high end,” he says, and he struggles to see a quick return to profit for casinos.

“They believed the good times were going to continue to roll for ever in Las Vegas. They believed there would be no significant downturn and even in a downturn, they didn’t believe a recession would affect the higher end.”

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